Book Reviews

Assignment Selous Scouts attracted some media attention at the time of its publication in late 2006 because of claims that South African operatives were planning to assassinate Zimbabwean Prime Minister Robert Mugabe on the day of his inauguration in a roadside bomb attack that was also likely to kill British Crown Prince Charles. Jim Parker, the author, was a reservist British South African Police Special Branch NCO assigned to the Selous Scouts Regiment during the latter years of the Rhodesian Bush War.

South Africa’s famously tough stance against “mercenaries” is the result of the success of one man – Eeben Barlow, founder of Executive Outcomes (EO). The company operated for less than a decade and reportedly only had about a handful of clients during that time, but rumour, conjecture and reporting greatly exaggerated this at the time. Where EO operated in public view, as was the case in Angola and Sierra Leone, the local people spoke highly of it, as William Shawcross wrote in his myth shattering book about United Nations peacekeeping - Deliver us from evil – Warlords & peacekeepers in a world of endless conflict – reviewed elsewhere on these pages.